Lord Show Me A Sign

A sign is an outward symbol that points to a tangible reality. For example a sign for a restaurant will tell us where it is but it’s not the restaurant itself.

Circumcision was the sign God gave to Abraham to confirm that He was going to be faithful to His word and keep all of the promises He made to Abraham. The importance of that sign and any other signs of the covenant don’t lie with the signs themselves, but with the reality the signs point to. Circumcision was the outward sign that showed that God had taken Abraham and his descendents to be His own people. The sign also served to reinforce the validity of God’s faithfulness in keeping the promises He made to Abraham.

What is the sign of the covenant? What does it represent and why is it important?


Circumcision was a sign of God‘s presence. God assures Abraham that despite his sin He has not left him. The sign God is about to give to Abraham is assurance of His presence with him and his children. The following passages show how God was with Isaac, Jacob and Joseph even as He was present with Abraham.

The LORD appeared to him and said, "Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land of which I shall tell you. 3 "Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham.
Gen. 26:2-3.

"Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."
Gen. 28:15.

 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there. 2 The LORD was with Joseph, so he became a successful man. And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian.
Gen. 39:1-2.

God’s presence with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and the rest of His people was crucial in His plan to settle them in their own land. His presence guaranteed that He would protect them from any danger that might threaten to destroy them so that they wouldn’t fulfill their purpose.

His presence guaranteed that they would grow and prosper. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph prospered specifically because God helped them. Their prosperity however was for the purpose of blessing God’s people.
His presence guaranteed that they would be preserved even through the most severe trial and trouble. God never left His people during their time in Egypt.

How would they know that God was still with them? Every time they performed the sign of His covenant on a newly born male child they’d remember His promise.

God’s promise of His presence also reminded them that they like their father Abraham was to walk before the Lord with holy integrity.

God is present with us now through the power of the Holy Spirit. How do we know this? Jesus promised to be with us and gave us the sign of baptism to signify that we identify with Him and that He is with us to the end of the age.
The church is never without the presence of the living God. His presence assures that He will protect, provide for and preserve us until the mission He’s called to is finished.

What sign do you need to believe God is still present with you? Have you been baptized? If so that is the sign that God through the Spirit is present with you. Baptism was given to the church as a sign that we’ve identified with the God of scripture, that we’ve died to one life and risen to another, that our sins have been washed away and to remind us that our Lord is always with us.

The issue is this: Do you believe that your baptism was a sign of these things or do you find yourself looking for new fresh signs?

Circumcision was a sign of God’s promise. The sign was an indication that the Lord would be faithful to His word. Remember the primary and most important aspect of that promise is the worldwide salvation that would come through Abraham’s great descendent Jesus Christ. Remember also that the promise is made by grace, dependent on God’s sovereign power and received by faith. We don’t have the morality, power or wisdom to bring it about ourselves.
God promised to grow Abraham from one childless man into a multitude of nations. Left to himself Abraham and Sarah would die childless and all that they had acquired would have went to someone else. God promised to give the land of Canaan to Abraham’s descendents. God promised to establish them in that land and to be their God.

In the years to come the Hebrews were to look back to these promises to remind them that God would always be faithful to His word. Thus they were to continue to walk before Him while they waited patiently for His promise.

Also the sign of circumcision reminded them that they were the people of God by grace and grace alone. They were indeed special because they were chosen. However they weren’t chosen because they were special.

Whenever we observe the sign of communion it reminds us that we’re the people of God by His grace. Left to ourselves we would never conceive of, consider, recognize, understand and believe in our Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of sin and new, vital, spiritual eternal life. The sign reminds us that we were chosen by grace and saved by grace.
This also means that God will definitely and certainly follow through on His promise to bring us into full complete salvation which is the redemption of our bodies. Observing communion helps us to focus not on ourselves with our shortcomings and sins, but on God’s promise to rescue and take a people for Himself.

Circumcision was a sign of God’s power. Note the number of times God declared what He would do by His own power. The sign of circumcision was the sign that reminded them that everything they became was strictly due to God’s power not theirs.

Abraham was powerless to have a child through Sarah his wife. The Hebrews were powerless to free themselves from the power of Egypt. They were equally powerless to invade Canaan, displace the nations there and set up their own secure country.

How do you know that you will make it into the kingdom? Can you be sure that you’ll have the right stuff to walk before the Lord so that in the end you’ll enjoy eternal salvation?

The sign of baptism and communion are ones that remind us that our salvation is in God’s hands and power not ours.

Circumcision was a sign that pointed to the reality of our salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ.

The cross of Christ and the empty tomb guarantee that God is present with His people now and will be forever present with us. That’s because at the cross Jesus Christ paid for all the sin that would have remained a permanent barrier between humanity and the living God.

The cross was God’s means to fulfill His promise to bless people from all ethnic groups with full, final and eternal salvation in Jesus Christ.

The cross was the demonstration of God’s power showing that our salvation was a sovereign powerful act of the living God and that is therefore rests on the finished work of Christ and not ourselves.

To Him Who Loves Us…
Pastor Lance